Claire Mastromonaco, a fifth grade teacher at Johnson School, leads the afterschool dance class that she gives for students in Bridgeport, Conn. Feb. 6, 2014. Mastromonaco wants to start a new all girls science and math charter school called STEAM.

Claire Mastromonaco, a fifth grade teacher at Johnson School, leads the afterschool dance class that she gives for students in Bridgeport, Conn. Feb. 6, 2014. Mastromonaco wants to start a new all girls science and math charter school called STEAM.

Claire Mastromonaco, a fifth grade teacher at Johnson School, leads the afterschool dance class that she gives for students in Bridgeport, Conn. Feb. 6, 2014. Mastromonaco wants to start a new all girls science and math charter school called STEAM.

BRIDGEPORT -- An outspoken Hartford magnet school principal, a Rhode Island education reform advocate and a longtime city teacher who also happens to be the mayor's ex, all want the same thing: open the state's next charter school here.

The three applications represent a third of nine applications received by the state to open charter schools this fall or next. As many as two could get the nod, Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor said last week. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's 2014-15 state budget proposal includes funding for two schools.

Already home to four charter schools, more than any other district in the state -- Hartford has two, New Haven has three -- the idea to give the state's most troubled school district even more comes as no surprise to Robert Bellafiore, spokesman for the Northeast Charter School Network.

"People are looking to open charters in Bridgeport because the need for better public schools is immense," Bellafiore said. "Parent demand is huge, with 1,162 names on charter school waiting lists."

Given that Bridgeport's school district is the second lowest-performing district in the state -- and seriously underfunded -- Bellafiore said the need for options is serious.

Separate public hearings on the three applications are in the works, but have not yet been set. There is also an interview process while the department scores the applications before making recommendations to the state Board of Education as early as March.

This year's applications will be reviewed and scored according to state law and RFP rules and procedures. First, applications will be reviewed for completeness, then the department will notify applicants if their proposals move to the next phase of the process. Complete applications will be evaluated and scored against the review criteria detailed in the RFP. Applicants may be invited for interviews based on the results of the evaluation. In addition to the interview phase, public hearings will be held in the local districts. The commissioner of education will then send recommendations to the state Board of Education.

Many of the proposals have already gained support.

Finch, who said more public school choice is a good thing, wrote a letter of support for Perry's proposed school. A member of his staff submitted a letter of support for Mastromonaco's proposal.

"We write letters of support for anyone daring enough to come forward and try to help our children," Finch said. "It is up to the state to determine the strongest team. I leave that up to the professionals."

Mastromonaco said she has always wanted to start a school for girls. A classroom teacher for 18 years, Mastromonaco also runs the Children's Center for the Arts. Her background is in the arts, but she loves the sciences and math and said she sees too many of her female students lose confidence and "check out" by the time they reach middle school.

She said a single-gender school that focuses on science, math and the arts will help them more feel confident.

STEAM would open in the former Holy Rosary School near Washington Park with 108 pre-kindergarten through first-graders and grow to a 252 pre-K to fifth-grade school by its fifth year. The school would strive to be racially balanced, draw from the suburbs and city. Its preschool would be Montessori-based.

Christopher Finch, her son and a teacher in New York City, would serve on her governing board along with several Bridgeport educators and parents.

In a letter of support for STEAM, Bruce Ravage, director of Park City Prep, a charter school that has won permission to add a fifth grade, said Mastromonaco knows the student population well and is in a unique position to address its needs.

Capital Prep Harbor School

Asked why he'd want to come to Bridgeport, Perry, a lightning rod for school reform issues, talks about the city's waterfront location, proximity to New York City and its potential.

"Bridgeport has always been one of those cities you heard about," Perry said. The charter school he would form here would be modeled after the public magnet school he has run in Hartford for nearly 10 years.

It would have a theme of social justice, a longer school day and year, require students to participate in sports and extra-curricular activities, and would strive -- according to the 600-page application -- to send all graduates to four-year colleges.

"Running it as a charter would be different," said Perry. "It would create the opportunity for us to be more creative. Quite frankly, there are limits within the structure of a large school system. Even when people don't want it to, it has to be the same. That sameness presents a challenge to schools like ours."

Something else that is different is that Capital Preparatory Schools Inc., a private management company run by Perry, would get 10 percent of the fee, $2.5 million over the first five years of the contract. Perry said that is common when charter firms run more than one school. It also remains unclear how much the school would pay for rent.

The Harbor School application said the city has dedicated space in the Bridgeport Technology and Trade Center on Barnum Avenue and the proposed budget shows no rental expenses. The city, however, doesn't own that property.

Among supporters of the plan are Kenneth Moales Jr., a member of the city school board.

Great Oaks

Great Oaks would be a college preparatory school geared largely toward English language learners, who make up more than 13 percent of students in the district.

The school day would be long, stretching from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., followed by after-school activities. The school year would be 200 days, compared to the normal 180 days a year.

There are already Great Oaks schools in New Jersey and New York, said Christina Grant, vice president of the Great Oaks Foundation, who acts a chief academic officer for both schools. The school would start with 100 sixth-graders and work its way up, providing two hours of individualized tutoring to students every day, according to the application.

It would also be located in the former Singer Factory on Barnum Avenue, where three other city charter schools (Bridge Academy, New Beginnings and Park City Prep) all got their start. Great Oaks would pay $10 a square foot for 6,366 square feet. It wants to open in the fall of 2015. Its management fee built into its budget would amount to $1.6 million over the five years.

One of the many letters of support for the proposal came from Meghan Lowney, executive director of the Zoom Foundation, and a behind-the-scenes player when the city school board was taken over by the state in 2011. Great Oaks' plans, she wrote, are aligned with her efforts to rapidly improve public education opportunities for underserved children by pooling and leveraging financial, human and political capital.

Claudia Phillips, who has a son in Achievement First Bridgeport, said she likes all charter school plans, but particularly the Great Oaks one.